How to Use Golf Course Water Features Strategically
As America’s leading golf course pond liner company, we have a few industry secrets on how to use golf course water features strategically.
Golf course water features provide difficult and unique challenges to a golfer’s game, in addition to providing stunning views for residents of golf communities. Just as golf is a strategy game, so is designing and building your perfect golf course water feature.
Whether you choose to plan your golf course water feature for awe-inspiring views or strategic playing, the placement of your water feature plays a significant part in the landscape of your course. Remember, golf course water features do much more than adding aesthetics, risks and hazards to your course. Where you choose to position your water feature could change a player’s strategy and enjoyment of the course itself.
Placement Counts
For instance, ponds that cut in front of the green present new challenges to a golfer. This specific positioning forces a golfer to choose whether to lay-up short of the pond or risk going directly into the pond by opting to play close behind it. However, golf course ponds can be functional as well. In this case, the location of your pond should be elsewhere. Often used for irrigation, these highly functional water features are found in areas not accessible by pedestrians or players.
When planning the addition of a golf course water feature, it is essential to consider the design as a whole. By balancing function and form, your end result will be a distinctive environment that is both aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound.
Golf Course Water Feature Trends
Architecturally speaking, diagonal, lateral and crossing streams serve as both effective and attractive hazards. Babbling brooks placed carefully adjacent to fairways and greens present enjoyable challenges. What golfer hasn’t experienced the pure joy (and luck) of bouncing over or narrowly missing a stream?
Today, greens adjacent to pristine streams are somewhat less common, while larger, shot-gobbling ponds can be found more frequently than ever before. So, what is behind this golf course trend? In a word: urbanization.